Choppiness continues on Dalal Street in early noon session

Indian equity bourses continued to trade choppy in early noon session as investors remained cautious ahead of the Brexit poll outcome later today, which will decide whether Britian would remain in the European Union or not. Further, Britain's exit from the European Union would have a significant economic repercussion-- Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has said. On the domestic front, selling in sectoral indices such as Realty, Power, Capital Goods, TECK and IT too dampened sentiment. However, losses remained capped with Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stated that the long-pending GST (Goods and Services Tax) Bill will be taken up in the coming monsoon session of Parliament and she is confidence that it will be passed. Besides, appreciation in rupee too provided some support. Rupee strengthened 15 paise to 67.33 against the US dollar in early noon deals on increased selling of the American currency by bankers and exporters.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red, as many investors sought shelter in safe-haven assets such as the Japanese yen and government debt as they braced for Britain's vote on its fate in the European Union. Back home, the market breadth is negative as 1432 stocks fall while 820 advance on the Bombay Stock Exchange. In scrip specific development, share of Reliance Communications was trading higher after the rating agency ICRA has upgraded its outlook to stable from negative on the long term rating 'BBB+' of the company.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26752.52, down by 13.13 points or 0.05% after trading in a range of 26736.52 and 26813.57. There were 12 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.18%, while Small cap index down by 0.32%.

The few gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Bankex up by 0.24%, FMCG up by 0.22%, Metal up by 0.14% and Auto up by 0.05%, while Realty down by 1.69%, Power down by 1.23%, Capital Goods down by 0.70%, TECK down by 0.46% and IT down by 0.45% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma Inds. up by 2.03%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.47%, Tata Motors up by 1.13%, Lupin up by 1.03% and ITC up by 0.90%. On the flip side, NTPC down by 2.79%, ONGC down by 1.40%, TCS down by 1.29%, Cipla down by 1.23% and Larsen & Toubro down by 1.11% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the government has extended the timeline for states to join the Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY), meant for the revival of debt-laden discoms, by one year till 31 March, 2017 from the earlier stipulated date of March 31, 2016. The proposal is cleared in order to facilitate all states that want to benefit from the scheme and could not join scheme or issue bonds to pay off discoms debt due to various reasons like elections and regulatory approvals.

Under the UDAY scheme, the states were required to join the scheme formally last fiscal and issue bonds to pay off discoms 50 percent debt in 2015-16 and were supposed to issue bonds to pay off additional 25 percent of the discoms debt in the current fiscal. However, some states could not join the scheme and some could not issue bonds due to various reasons. As with this decisions, these state would be able issue the bonds to pay of 75 percent of state discoms debts as on September, 30, 2015 during the current fiscal itself.

Till date, 19 states have agreed to join the UDAY scheme. The discoms have total outstanding debt of Rs 4.3 lakh crore as on September 30, 2015. States that have joined UDAY issued bonds of nearly Rs 1 lakh crore in 2015-16 under the scheme to clear 50 per cent of the outstanding debt. Further, as per the requirement of the scheme, discoms bonds worth Rs 11,524 crore were floated. In the current fiscal, bonds worth Rs 14,801 crore have been floated by Uttar Pradesh.

Launched in November last year, UDAY scheme deals with the burgeoning debt of discoms in the country. It was estimated that outstanding debt of discoms has increased from about Rs 2.4 lakh crore in 2011-12 to about Rs 4.3 lakh crore in 2014-15, with interest rates upto 14-15 percent. It was also estimated that state discoms suffer a loss of over Rs 60,000 crore every year. The main objective of the scheme is to get these discoms out of circle of debt and allow them to buy power to increase consumption in the country.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8192.35, down by 11.35 points or 0.14% after trading in a range of 8188.30 and 8212.35. There were 24 stocks advancing against 27 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Sun Pharma up by 2.16%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 1.44%, Ambuja Cement up by 1.34%, Lupin up by 1.24% and Tata Motors up by 1.17%. On the flip side, Bharti Infratel down by 3.83%, NTPC down by 3.15%, ONGC down by 1.37%, Tata Power down by 1.36% and TCS down by 1.35% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Taiwan Weighted decreased 39.57 points or 0.45% to 8,676.68, Shanghai Composite decreased 17.12 points or 0.59% to 2,888.43, Jakarta Composite decreased 15.51 points or 0.32% to 4,881.34, KOSPI Index decreased 5.87 points or 0.29% to 1,986.71 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 0.66 points or 0.04% to 1,637.03, while Hang Seng increased 56.13 points or 0.27% to 20,851.25 and Nikkei 225 increased 169.27 points or 1.05% to 16,234.99.